


we'll fall apart on the weekend

by satellites (brella)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Periods - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 15:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/satellites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week after New Year's, disaster strikes. It's like the universe is having an allergic reaction to the fact that she's actually happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll fall apart on the weekend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disco_vendetta (brinn)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinn/gifts).



> 10/2/2017: This is a fic I wrote a long time ago when I was on my period about Artemis being on her period. I thought it was funny at the time. I apologize.

She’s never been able to find out exactly what beef the universe has with her. She never did anything hugely wrong to it, not that she remembers, unless being born counts, but she’s pretty damn proud of the fact that she was born, so that’s probably not it.  
  
Whatever she did to deserve it (or whatever she didn’t do), the universe’s personal vendetta against her is still grossly prominent, and it seems to have some sort of horrible aversion to her being happy. She didn’t know her happiness was so offensive.   
  
The point is that, a week after New Year’s Day –  _the best day of her life_ , maybe, tied with the day she joined the Team and the day she learned how to braid her hair by herself after Jade left – disaster strikes, completely and utterly. It’s like the universe starts having a severe anaphylactic reaction the second it notices that she’s actually happy.   
  
The Team has a busy schedule ahead of them – a hearty string of reconnaissance missions, intensive training from Black Canary in the mornings and evenings (it’s her way of apologizing for attacking them while under evil mind control, which she doesn’t need to apologize for anyway), and nightly lessons from Batman on the delicate strategy of Not Blowing Things Up on Simple Reconnaissance Missions.  
  
So it’s clearly a perfect time for her cycle to start a week early.  _Clearly_.  
  
Okay, so, Artemis is usually pretty good at hiding the fact that she’s on her period when she’s around the Team. This is mostly because she’s an expert in the art of nutting up and just keeps her mouth shut about it. Or maybe it’s actually just because fortune has favored her by conveniently shutting down all Team activities in the middle of every month. For whatever reason, she’s never had to deal with it before – at least, not around them. But the game has apparently changed.  
  
Dramatically.   
  
She wakes up on Tuesday morning at the Cave (spectacular; Batman had wanted them to board there all week) with that telltale squirming in her abdomen and hobbles her way out of bed, and she knows right away that she’s screwed, because she’s starting to cramp.  
  
It’s like M’gann’s Girl Problem senses are tingling, because her voice jounces its way into Artemis’ head immediately:  _There are products in the cabinet over the toilet!_  
  
If minds could groan cantankerously, Artemis’ would totally be doing it, but she’s way too tired and way too stunned by the horrible unexpectedness of it all that she just sort of nods at nobody and opens the cabinet.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kaldur treats it like it’s some sort of tragic illness she’s just been diagnosed with, giving her solemn looks and meaningful nods whenever she catches his eye.

  
“I am truly sorry for your affliction, my friend,” he tells her, like he’s offering his condolences. “I cannot imagine what you must be going through.”   
  
Artemis wants to quip back or grumble or snarl or even hiss, but she just kind of nods wearily and says, “Thanks, Kaldur.”   
  
Red Tornado’s the one who inadvertently announces it at breakfast (“Artemis, perhaps it would be wiser to dine on foods more heavy in protein, since you are currently menstruating.”). From then on, Robin’s ears turn an unsightly shade of radish red in her presence and he practically cartwheels away in terror, hiding in the rafters; M’gann is inordinately enthusiastic that she gets to help Artemis through this dark time; Zatanna is her saving grace, naturally, giving Conner dirty looks whenever he stares suspiciously at Artemis like she’s about to break for too long; Rocket wants absolutely nothing to do with it, thank you, because teams kick ass and fight crime and do not talk about periods; and Wally doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself except start blathering about the importance of plasmin in relation to the shedding of the endometrium’s lining.   
  
It’s horrible. She could die.   
  
“My deepest apologies, Artemis,” Kaldur says again when she loses miserably to him during sparring. “Truly, I am—”  
  
“Kaldur,” she replies tightly when he helps hoist her up by one hand, “I love you, I do, but I’ll kill you with my face if you don’t stop talking.”   
  
She immediately blinks apologetically and flounders. Kaldur looks wounded.  
  
Wally spits out his soda and it dribbles down his chin as he choke-laughs into his fist. Robin’s stiff as a board, Zatanna’s snickering, and Black Canary is massaging the bridge of her nose.   
  
“Do you need to sit out for a while, Artemis?” Canary asks cautiously.  
  
“No,” Artemis barks back emphatically, and she totally doesn’t; at least, not until she doubles over when she’s fighting Robin, but his rambling questions about her well-being give her enough time to kick him in the midsection and bowl him over.  _Artemis, +5_.   
  
The universe is cackling in a corner.  _This is only the beginning_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Their first reconnaissance mission of the week, staking out a clearing in the middle of the Amazon rainforest where Mallah was seen approximately three times since the New Year’s incident, is brutal. It’s humid and stuffy and the mud smells like rotten bananas and she’s been paired up with Wally, who looks torn between patting her back comfortingly and laughing his ass off. 

  
“So like,” he says for the fiftieth time since they’d landed an hour ago, “you’re sure you’re… y’know. Okay?”  
  
“Wally, it’s my period,” she grinds out, stuffing her face into her hands because she can’t believe they’re having this conversation in the middle of a reconnaissance mission. “And by the way, no, I don’t need to spend the night in the med bay for observation; I’m fine!”  
  
“You cried at the Raid commercial last night,” Wally replies bemusedly. “I’d say that’s a red flag.”  
  
Apparently the sight of a few sneaky cartoon ants being incinerated by Raid had caused her great heartache the night before while she sat up with Wally and watched  _Friends_  reruns, and she’d explained tearfully through gritted teeth to him (as he hyperventilated) that  _it wasn’t fair because what if they had families_?  
  
“We don’t speak of that,” she growls, drawing her knees in tighter as she crouches in the bushes. Her cramps are pulverizing her. “Now or ever. Or I kill you.”  
  
“Am I the twentieth person you’ve threatened to murder today?” he asks idly. “Besides Kal, and Rob, and Batman when he wasn’t listening…”  
  
“Excuse me for hating the world,” she snaps, glowering churlishly at the ground.  
  
She hears a shuffle in the dark beside her and glances up to see a hand holding a chocolate bar at her nose. Wally brandishes it entrancingly and she frowns.   
  
“That’s – from your backup stash,” she stammers. She doesn’t know why she’s aware of this.  
  
He clears his throat.  
  
“Only for emergencies,” he replies easily. “Like my girlfriend turning into a harpy for real.” He huffs and waves it around. “Just take it before your griping blows our cover.”  
  
She swipes it out of his hand and tears into it, downing the whole thing faster than she’s seen him do it. The pain in her torso alleviates slightly, but she’s still got the migraine.   
  
“How’d you know?” she mumbles, tossing the wrapper into her quiver because she seriously doesn’t even care anymore.   
  
“Aren’t periods like dementors because they like, suck your soul out; only if you eat chocolate, everything’s cool?” he replies in lieu of an answer, picking at his teeth.   
  
“Sure, Wally,” she concedes wearily.  
  
“No, but seriously,” he adds, “Chocolate equals dopamine, and dopamine equals a happy archer.”  
  
“Do you think about this kind of stuff often?” she snickers.  
  
He grins at her. 

“I always have to be on the alert, basically.” And she’s grateful that Wally’s there, really. And she’s grateful that M’gann is floating cautiously around in her mind, checking up on her. And she’s grateful that it’s dark and quiet so that nobody sees her grimacing as she presses the butt of her bow against her stomach.

  
She’s also grateful that, for once, they don’t blow anything up on a simple reconnaissance mission, unless her temper counts during the bioship flight back when Robin’s stupid enough to yank on her hair.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Combat only gets worse. By Friday (Thursday had been spent growling and spitting during something Batman calls a training simulation but that Wally and Robin unanimously call laser tag), the cramps aren’t as prevalent, but they’re still there, enough to keep her from walking properly. 

Enough to concern Batman. Enough to make him ask her if she’s hiding anything from the Team, to which she replies no, unless her personal feminine inconveniences count as a dangerous secret, and he just sort of blinks down at her like he has no idea what she’s talking about before turning around and stalking out, cape swooping behind him.   
  
“There hasn’t been a Batgirl yet,” Robin explains. “He’s kinda catching up on this stuff.”  
  
“So are you, apparently,” Artemis retorts snidely, and Robin flushes before skittering away.   
  
M’gann bakes her an enormous tray of cookies that Artemis wolfs down in under ten minutes, and Wally doesn’t get a single crumb, damn it, because she deserves every last morsel of that stuff for the crap she’s had to go through this week. Before they deploy for New Orleans to try to track down the Riddler after his fiftieth escape from Arkham, she spends most of her time in her room with a copy of  _Harry Potter and the Deathly_ Hallowsperched on her abdomen.   
  
It’s raining there, but at least it isn’t humid; however, she has to stake out the roof of the small business where the Riddler might be popping in for nauseatingly colored suits, so naturally she winds up drenched. They’re spotted, naturally, and she fights a couple of thugs without breaking a sweat, but she’s starving and cranky and sore, and Wally doesn’t have any spare snacks except for granola bars, and suddenly granola bars seem really gross.   
  
_She_  seems really gross, actually.   
  
“This is so interesting to watch,” M’gann squeals with enthusiasm. “Zatanna usually keeps hers to herself, and Rocket hasn’t—”  
  
“How about we  _don’t_  talk about my hypothetical period, thanks?” Rocket snips dryly. “I like whatever scraps of privacy you guys’re still letting me have.”  
  
“Privacy?” Wally asks innocently.  
  
“What’s that?” Robin adds.  
  
“Is it a food brand?” Wally continues.  
  
“Wally wears Superman briefs.”  
  
“Robin listens to JMac.”  
  
“Conner likes  _A Goofy Movie_.”  
  
“Wally sings eighties music in his underwear!”  
  
Artemis shakes her hands at the sky and wants to scream.

 

 

* * *

 

 

New Year’s Day had been nice. Really, really nice. She and Wally, sweaty and dust-ingrained from their episode with the cargo hold doors, had sat in their usual spots on the bioship on the flight back to Earth and hadn’t said a thing at first, and she had silently been thinking to herself that if he didn’t acknowledge the fact that they’d kissed like a couple of morons and he’d blushed to the point of warming her cheeks and she’d laughed against his teeth, she would personally throw him into space. 

But he had suddenly leaned back in his seat, tilting backwards until his head was upside-down and he was smiling up at her, and she’d stared blankly back.  
  
“You have the prettiest freaking hair,” he’d declared with a toothy grin, and she’d put a self-conscious hand on the tangled, matted, very dirty mass of a ponytail puffing out behind her.  
  
“What?” she’d replied eloquently.   
  
“Sorry, I’ve just wanted to say that since forever,” he'd continued, sounding giddy. “Cherish my praise while you can, Blondie. It’s the free gift you get from kissing me.”  
  
“Wow, what a prize,” she’d bandied back sarcastically, shoving her palm against his face.   
  
He’d wrinkled his nose and grimaced and her stomach had swelled up like a balloon and Robin had chimed in, “Get a  _room_.”  
  
It had been quiet since then. Sometimes she’d forget that it had even happened, often until Wally would yank her aside in the hallways after missions and put his hands on either side of her face and press their lips together like it was the only thing that would ever fill him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They don’t have any missions on Saturday, praise everything, so she finally has the opportunity to literally curl up on the couch and watch TV until two in the morning and hold Zatanna’s spare heating pad against her and generally sniff disdainfully at how much her life totally sucks. The Team has quieted down about her predicament, minus Kaldur, who still acts like he’s attending a funeral whenever he’s near her, and minus Robin, who lets out strangled cries whenever she says the word “period.” 

They’ve all gone to bed, even M’gann and Conner, usually the last ones to crash. She has the couch all to herself and the blanket all to herself and it’s snowing outside, but she’s just in agony and she can’t take any ibuprofen because she’s allergic and it gives her hives, and how is this her life, again?  
  
“I called the channel and asked them to censor the Raid commercial.” Wally’s voice, pouncing on her from behind with self-satisfaction that makes her stomach churn (or maybe that’s just her haywire hormones).  
  
“How considerate of you,” she mumbles into a pillow. He comes around and plops down on the couch beside her.   
  
The top of her head barely brushes the side of his leg and he pats it, which makes her growl threateningly. It dissolves into a stifled whimper, though, when her abdomen clenches up with sharp pain and she curls in more tightly on herself, gritting her teeth. This is totally and completely not fair.   
  
Wally’s hand halts and he clears his throat a little helplessly, shifting further down onto the cushions and crossing his arms.   
  
“Do you really have to be here right now?” Artemis grumbles after a while, pulling the blanket over her head.   
  
“Well, um,” he replies hesitantly, “Yes and no.”  
  
She doesn’t say anything, hoping he’ll correctly take it as a signal to keep talking. He does.  
  
“I mean, yes in the sense that you’re in mortal agony and shouldn’t have to go it alone, and no in the sense that I’m running a serious risk of being decapitated here,” he continues rapidly. “So I’m making a lot of sacrifices here, because, y’know, I’m a good boyfriend, obviously.”  
  
“You really like throwing that around, don’t you?” she mutters, feeling drowsy. She can sense Wally’s satisfied grin pressing into the air around her.   
  
“Oh, you know it.” He ruffles her hair and she flails threateningly at him, burrowing further down into the blankets. “Okay, okay, you can go ahead and sulk and be a chick and I’ll just get out of your blast zone.”  
  
“Please,” she half-groans, half-hisses, and she’s never let herself beg him to do anything for her before, so not only is this whole debacle totally humiliating, but horrifying as well.  
  
Wally’s weight lifts from the couch and that’s the end of  _that_  conversation, she supposes, and she huffs tiredly before rolling over with a wince.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Is she in need of medical attention?” Kaldur asks solemnly, cross-legged on the edge of the bench press with his elbows resting on his knees. 

“She’ll be fine,” Wally insists lamely as Robin fidgets nervously. Superboy is leaning against the wall, looking incredibly angered by the topic of conversation.   
  
Wally had gone banging on their doors to call an emergency top-secret dude meeting in the manly confines of the training room, to discuss Artemis’ affliction with more worldly and objective people than M’gann and Zatanna.   
  
“Perhaps we should call in the League,” Kaldur muses with a somber tone, bowing his head.   
  
“Don’t be stupid,” Conner grunts, and Wally jumps a little, having forgotten he was there for a second. “This happens all the time to Zatanna and we never say anything.”  
  
“It does?” Robin exclaims in awe.   
  
“She just keeps quiet about it,” Conner adds gruffly, folding his arms.  
  
“Does it happen to M’gann?” Wally asks.   
  
“No, she’s a Martian,” Conner replies incredulously, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.   
  
“Would this qualify as an unexpected illness on the Team?” Kaldur pipes in with heavy concern. “It has not impaired our ability to perform adequately during missions, but perhaps it—”  
  
“Why are we talking about this?” Robin sounds pained. “Isn’t this supposed to be classified intel for females only, or something?”  
  
“We are merely worried about Artemis’ well-being,” Kaldur explained defensively. “I have noticed that she has seemed off-kilter as of late. I had no idea that ovulation was so painful. It is hardly noticeable in Atlantis. I pity her deeply.”   
  
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Wally admonishes him. Robin shudders.   
  
“Can we go back to the part where we were discussing our training scores?” he begs, but nobody seems to hear him.   
  
“Has she been exceedingly lachrymose as well, Wally?” Kaldur inquires delicately. Wally splutters with laughter.  
  
“Um, that’s a really mild way of putting it, yeah.”  
  
“What has caused her to weep?” Kaldur sounds fascinated. Wally frowns, ticking things off on his fingers.   
  
“Commercials, mostly. Oh, and she started getting really emotional about Lassie.”  
  
Kaldur hums pensively, his eyebrows furrowing. “That is indeed quite worrisome.”  
  
“Should we do something to help her?” Robin squeaks. “I mean, from a distance?”   
  
“I’m pretty sure she’ll be okay,” Wally guffaws, but Kaldur has other ideas.   
  
“I propose we attempt to make her as comfortable as possible until her cycle has dwindled,” he states officially, standing and beginning to pace. “We may consult M’gann on the finer strategies toward this end, but it is unwise to allow a teammate to wallow in such torment.”   
  
Robin throws his hands up. “I have nothing to do with this. Just saying.”  
  
“Guys, I really think she’s going to pull through—” Wally starts to say, but Conner gives a tight nod before he can finish.  
  
“You’re right, Kaldur,” he agrees seriously, his mouth in a hard line. “We should help her.”  
  
“I have nothing to do with this!” Robin cries out again, leaping up and starting to flee, but Wally grabs onto his cape and yanks him back.   
  
“Team,” Kaldur declares, raising his head grandly. “We must commence Operation: Repair Artemis.”  
  
“Oh boy,” Wally mutters under his breath, and he wonders how long it’ll take him to write out a will.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Does somebody want to explain why there’s a cake sitting on my bed?” Artemis demands the next morning to the living room full of boys (and Zatanna, and M’gann, and Rocket).  

“Santa?” Rocket suggests sarcastically just as Robin sprints out of the room and Wally points an accusatory finger at Kaldur, stifling his grin.   
  
Artemis narrows her eyes at the lot of them before turning her attention to Kaldur, who doesn’t flinch.   
  
“It was intended as a mark of well wishes,” he explains calmly, “from your concerned teammates.”  
  
Artemis is ready, right then and there, to die.   
  
“That’s – that’s wonderful, Kaldur,” she grinds out. “I’m just – so touched. Really. But here’s what all of you can do to  _really_  help me out during this dark time.”  
  
“What is that, my friend?” Kaldur asks, and everyone stares attentively at her.   
  
Her cheeks redden and she screws her eyes shut and she screams, “ _SHUT UP ABOUT IT!_ ”   
  
“I,” Kaldur flounders, but she’s already whirled around on her heel and stormed away, fuming and seething and everything in between, because this is the literal, actual worst. Ever.  
  
All heads turn to Wally with accusing glares. He puts his hands up defenselessly, but Zatanna grabs him by the ear and shoves him in the direction of the hallway down which Artemis has just vanished, and he has the good sense to sigh in defeat and say nothing before striding down it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a hesitant knocking on the door to her room that makes her migraine pound rebelliously. She groans, throwing a pillow at it, but the knock sounds again and she has no choice but to cave in. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she says as loudly as she can without agitating herself, and the door slides open. She glares at the ceiling, spread-eagled and scowling on the bed. “If you’re anyone between Wally and Wally, you’re dead meat. Fair warning.”  
  
“I’m… occupying both ends of that spectrum,” Wally sighs, sitting carefully down on the edge of the bed, tactfully away from her feet. “Look, babe, I’m sorry. We just wanted to… help.”  
  
“Help me by drawing attention to my pain, yeah, thanks,” she deadpans, grabbing a pillow and dropping it onto her face. “You guys are real pals.”  
  
“Kaldur was the one who was really all for it. He was legitimately concerned about your well-being.”  
  
“Well, maybe you guys are too stupid to realize that I do this every month and I always pull through just fine without being made into comedy fodder,” she bites back. “Ow.”  
  
“You okay?” he asks hesitantly.  
  
“Yeah, just swell.”  
  
“Look, if this is anybody’s fault, it’s RT’s, for telling everybody,” Wally rambles, sounding flustered. “I mean, he should’ve known that Kaldur would go all Mama Bear on the whole thing and he should’ve known that it’d break Rob. And he also should’ve known that—”  
  
“That I’m basically the only girl on the team who has to deal with this crap?” Artemis finishes, because she’s well aware that M’gann does not biologically need to menstruate and that Zatanna fixes her problems with spells and that Rocket is a badass who feels no pain. “Yeah, be sure to write that into his programming. I feel like an idiot.” She pauses. “Do  _not_  tell anyone that I said that.”  
  
“Look, you really don’t need to be embarrassed,” Wally supplies helpfully. “Every girl goes through—”  
  
“Oh my  _god_!” she yells, finally twisting her body enough to sufficiently kick him in the ribs. A bit too hard, apparently, because it knocks him off the bed.   
  
“I’m okay,” he calls up from the floor, popping back to his feet.  
  
“Thank you; I was so worried,” she sneers back. “You’re ridiculous. You seriously are the most  _ridiculous person_.”  
  
“Just trying to help,” he protests lamely, this time sitting down next to her head. She rolls away.   
  
“Can you just… can we  _not_  make a big deal out of this?  _Please_?” It’s the second time she’s begged him for something in the past two days and it’s driving her crazy, but she has no choice. “And by we I mean  _everybody_.”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” he acquiesces apologetically, and she exhales wanly before lapsing into silence. “Sorry. A lot.”  
  
A beat. “Seriously.”  
  
“Just leave me alone,” she mutters, and naturally, he doesn’t; he just passes her a melted and mutated chocolate bar from his back pocket and apparently hopes that it’ll be enough. She won’t tell him that it basically is.  
  
“You know that part in Juno where the dad says that the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass even if you’re acting totally terrible?” he asks innocently at one point while she chews. She nods skeptically and he flashes her a winning smile. “You’re still G2V, babe. Forever and always.”  
  
She really wishes she didn’t get that joke, but she does. He leans down and plants a kiss on her temple and she lets herself smile just a little, staring sleepily up at him, as he snickers unstoppably.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She’s fine the next day, and the next month, and every month after that. She doesn’t know exactly what was so different about that January, but it never haunts her again, not even when, on Monday, they all gather in the kitchen after their mission and eat the cake, spewing crumbs everywhere from laughing so hard. It’s never brought up by anyone again, except M’gann, who always insists on holding her hand through the hard parts, even when there aren’t any hard parts to begin with, really. 

She knows that she’s made good friends, though, and that she’s on a good team. It may have something to do with how they basically flew into terrified tizzies the moment it became clear that she was in mental and physical pain, and it may have something to do with how, yeah, they baked her a freaking cake because she was on her period (the Atlantean glyphs, Kaldur dutifully explains, mean that he hopes Poseidon will bless her uterus with peace); it may also have something to do with how eerily concerned they all were with her predicament, and maybe it’s just how funny it is whenever Robin has a small tachycardia at the mere mention of menstruation.  
  
It’s a magnificently weird week, all in all. And the universe probably thinks that it’s been really hilarious, causing her so much misery and anguish and humiliation. But it’s all cool in the end, mostly. Somehow, with them, it always is.  

**Author's Note:**

> Note to self: Try to come up with shorter titles for things, please and thanks.


End file.
